🍪 The startup Olympics are here
Good morning, friends. Happy first week of September, aka SeptemBear. ‘Cause in the last century, the S&P 500 has averaged -1.1% returns in September.
It’s the only month where the S&P’s price has decreased 56% of the time.
Buckle up, friends, it’s open season - and the bears are out huntin'.
Alright, let’s get to the good stuff.
In the oven this week:
🤓 YC demo day picks
🗳️ Poll of the week: who here’s a founder?
🍪 Cookie crumbs: 5 bite-sized headlines
🍫 Chocolate chips: our 3 favorite finds this week
😂 Snickerdoodles: memes for the weekend
FRESHLY BAKED
YC DEMO DAY IS HERE
The nerd Olympics just started and we snagged a front row seat.
That’s right folks, it’s YC Demo Day.
That time of the year when the whole YC batch drop their pencils and pitch investors on what they've been working on.
It’s for all the marbles.
Of course, we had to go spectate, and out of the 217 contenders, here were our 3 top picks:
1. Roame
We’ve been waiting for Google to come out with this, but looks like this startup beat them to the punch.
Roame is a flight search tool, but for points/miles. They sift through a ton of airline rewards programs and partners so you can now figure out the cheapest way to get to Japan, in points.
Time for us to book some holiday travel 👀
What would Demo Day be without a windfall of AI startups??
Before you roll your eyes, hang on. This one’s actually a great use case.
Let me tee it up for ya. AHEM.
What’s the one thing worse than going to the doctor’s?
Getting a bill from the doctor’s charging you for the wrong thing.
Apparently, there are 30% fewer medical coders (the people that log your appointment for billing) than there should be, and most of them are over 50 years old.
And what happens when you have a bunch of old geysers hurrying to finish their work?
Errors!!!
That’s where Decoda Health comes in. They’re using AI to read electronic health record systems and automatically assign billing codes to clinician notes.
The result?
Clinics save 30% in coding costs, see 20% fewer claim denials, and cut claim processing time to seconds.
Pretty sweet.
3. Flint
Teachers can now have AI do their homework for them.
Flint’s an AI tool that creates all the content K-12 teachers have to come up with: classroom activities, worksheets, quizzes, you name it.
You know those days when your teacher didn’t come up with a lesson plan and just forced the whole class to watch a movie?
Well, now everyday is gonna be a movie day for them.
FROM THE COOKIE JAR
POLL OF THE WEEK: ARE YOU A FOUNDER?
Demo Day got us thinking… how many of our readers are founders?
We’ve got a lot of you in big tech and venture, but how many of you have either started a company or are currently a founder in the trenches?
Sound off 👇🏽 |
THE BIG PIZOOKIE
It’s a good thought exercise, right? Instead of trying to figure out what you’d be good at, think about what you’d be willing to do for 5000 hours.
‘Cause if you can sustain it for that long, you’ll get good.
COOKIE CRUMBS
BITE SIZED HEADLINES
If you don’t know, Netflix’s original come up involved mailing people DVDs. This month they’re finally ending their OG DVD-by-mail service this month, and they’re letting subscribers keep the DVDs. It’s official, they’ve grown up. 🥲
Venture capital invested in crypto startups hit a 3 year low in Q2 2023, even though Bitcoin surged 55% YTD this year. BRRRR, it’s chilly in cryptoland.
Speaking of venture, Sequoia is in hot water. Apparently investors are concerned about Sequoia's latest missteps (think their $225M bet on FTX) and they’re now doing damage control.
NYC is officially enforcing their short term rental ban. They’re officially banning rentals of fewer than 30 days unless the host is present, and with a maximum of two guests. If hosts don’t comply, they can get fined up to $5K. It’s a great time to be a hotel …
CHOCOLATE CHIPS
OUR FAVORITE FINDS
SNICKERDOODLES
THURSDAY MEMES
how it feels to listen to podcasts
— zetsubouquet (@zetsubouquet)
Jan 3, 2017
😂
That's all we got for ya this week, folks. See ya next Thursday!
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